


when you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon

by torigates



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 05:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is tired of saying no. </p><p>aka the one where Nick and Jess drive and fuck their way across America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cashewdani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/gifts), [Sonni89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonni89/gifts).



> I knew I was going to write this for Dani as soon as I saw "Elaine's Big Day," and then Sonni, who won me in the AO3 auction, asked for the same thing. She graciously agreed to share.

“Before you say no,” Jess says, looking desperate and crazy and sad and hopeful. “Don’t say no.” 

Nick is tired of saying no. 

 

\- 

 

It’s not too late when they get in the car. Nick feels like that fucking John Mayer song, feels bigger than his own body (and shut up, _Winston_ listens to him sometimes, Nick can’t help that the damn thing is an earworm. Can’t help it at all). 

They’re laughing and giggling, and every so often Jess reaches out and grabs his hand, touches his thigh. The radio is playing softly in the background, but Nick can’t really hear it over the rushing wind from his open window and the pounding of his blood in his veins. 

He gets on the interstate, because why the fuck not. Jess doesn’t say anything to stop him, just keeps laughing and smiling and Nick feels like nothing in the world could hurt him in this moment. He hasn’t felt this way since--probably never, to be honest. Probably never since his dad got his hands deep underneath Nick’s skin, and Nick had to become a man before he was ever ready to. 

There are a lot of cars on the highway, because it’s Los Angeles and when are there not cars on the highway. Nick keeps driving. Jess drifts off to sleep at some point, still has a smile on her face. Nick keeps driving through the cool night air, keeps driving well past midnight, passing freight trucks, and other people. Who knows where they’re going. 

For once, Nick thinks his life is probably better than all of theirs. 

When he sees the signs, Nick knows exactly where he’s going. 

Jess doesn’t stir until he pulls the car to a stop, just after five in the morning. Even this early there are other cars around, and he thinks it’s funny that they’re here with the other early risers. Nick has never been before because his parents could never afford to take them out of the state growing up. Nick never left Illinois until he went to law school. 

“Where are we?” Jess asks. She stretches and rubs her eyes. Nick wants to kiss her, so he leans over and does. Doesn’t have to stop himself anymore. 

Jess makes a face, but kisses him back. It’s kind of gross, honestly. Nick’s been driving for hours and Jess has morning breath, but it’s still one of the greatest things to ever happen to him. 

He grins. “Come on.” 

They get out of the car. It’s hardly light out, but bright enough to see. Jess’s breath catches when she realises where they are. 

The Grand Canyon is... there aren’t really words. Nick is terrible with words to begin with--it’s one of the reasons why he would have made a terrible lawyer, but there aren’t words. 

They stand at the edge and watch as the sun comes up fully over the horizon and Nick thinks _yes_. 

It’s the only word he knows. 

 

\- 

 

Jess makes them go for a hike. She’s still wearing her sari, but she doesn’t let it stop her. Nick has long since shed his jacket, tie, and dress shirt. The suit pants are terrible for walking in and the shoes are worse, but Jess can’t stop smiling, and she takes a bunch of pictures of the two of them, of the scenery around them. 

When they finally make their way back to the car, sweaty and exhausted, Nick collapses into the back seat and thinks about never moving again. He’s been awake for more than twenty four hours and all he wants to do is sleep, or at least be somewhere with air conditioning. 

Jess slaps him on the thigh and gets behind the driver’s seat. 

When he wakes up he feels like absolute trash on a stick. Jess has pulled into a Howard Johnson somewhere, and they stumble inside and book a room. Jess hands over a credit card, and the cheery woman behind the desk gives them a room key. 

They ride up the elevator to their room. Nick sways a bit on his feet. When Jess opens the room he stumbles forward and collapses on the bed. He drifts off again, because sometime later Jess is shaking him awake. 

“I bought you a clean t-shirt at the gift shop,” she whispers. 

Nick nods and strips out of his clothes, not bothering to notice or care where they land. He ignores the shirt in favour of crawling under the covers in just his boxers. Jess gets in next to him, and he pulls her flush against his body before passing out again. 

He wakes sometime later, feeling more rested but still like garbage. The inside of his mouth feels like a million cotton balls climbed in there and settled in for the long hall. The air conditioner is clunking loudly somewhere behind him, but the room is blissfully cool, and Jess is asleep next to him. 

He stumbles out of bed and in the general direction of where he thinks the bathroom might be. Pisses and drinks a glass of water. Notices two toothbrushes and a small tube of toothpaste on the counter beside the sink, and smiles. Brushes his teeth. 

He walks back to the bed in the near darkness of their hotel room. Jess is still asleep on the bed, and when he climbs in next to her he can see the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. He presses his face against the nape of her neck and breathes in with her. 

He must doze off again, because he shakes awake when Jess stirs a little while later. She stretches and it presses her body up against his. Nick is suddenly aware of the fact that he’s in just his boxers, and Jess is only wearing a t-shirt. The cotton is stiff and smells like all clothes do when you first buy them. He strokes his hands against the flat of her stomach, enjoying the softness there. 

Jess hums. 

She gets out of bed and Nick watches her walk to the bathroom. Listens to the sounds of her puttering around in there. The toilet flushes, and the water runs. When she comes back to bed her breath is minty and he hands are damp. 

He presses her down into the mattress on her back, and she spreads her legs making room for him between them. 

 

-

 

Jess is a morning person. 

This is a fact that Nick knew _in theory_ after living with her for two years, but it wasn’t something he ever had to put into practical practice. He could always hear her shuffling around the apartment, making breakfast, watching television--singing--but he could always ignore it from the safety and comfort of his own bedroom. Behind his closed door. It’s brought into startling harsh reality when she shakes him awake the next morning just after seven. 

“Bwah?” Nick asks. 

She’s sitting on the bed, legs crossed over the edge, dressed in tight black leggings, and a t-shirt that says “GRAND CANYON” in bold letters above a picture of--you guessed it--the Grand Canyon. 

“Come on,” she says. “Continental breakfast downstairs. Let’s go.” 

Nick rolls over. She shakes him for several minutes straight, and Nick kind of wants to punch her in the throat. That’s the kind of behaviour that is acceptable towards one girlfriend, right? Maybe-girlfriend? Friend with benefit who he is crazy about? Shit, what the fuck is she? Then he panics a little about the fact that he wants to punch her in the throat, because despite everything he _definitely_ knows that’s not cool. 

Jess has not stopped shaking his shoulder for a second during his entire freakout. 

“Fuck,” he shouts, getting out of bed. “Goddammit, _fine_.” He storms to the bathroom and slams the door. 

“Thanks!” Jess calls, sounding perky. Nick hates the fact that it warms his heart. Dammit. 

They eat the shitty continental breakfast. The scrambled eggs taste equally carboardy and watery, which is a skill, if Nick is being honest. Not a great skill, but a skill nonetheless. 

Jess delicately eats yogurt and fruit and the way she puts her spoon in her mouth and _sucks_ makes Nick’s pants feel a little too tight. He glares at her.

She smiles back cheerily. Nick has never been happier in his entire life and everything is terrible.

“So heading back today,” she says. A beat. “Right?” 

Nick nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Makes sense.” 

Nick chews his stiff yet mushy eggs for another moment in silence. 

“Or,” Jess says. 

Nick looks at her. He grins. 

 

\- 

 

Jess makes them stop at a mall before hitting the road again. They need clothes and toiletries. Nick manfully does not point out that there are times (numerous, often times) he goes days without showering or changing his clothes. It would probably reduce his chances of getting laid. 

They hit the road again, Jess behind the wheel. 

It’s almost entirely desert for the six hour drive to Santa Fe. The AC in Jess’s car is broken so they drive with the windows down, Nick scanning the radio occasionally for a new station when the static begins to overtake the music. 

They stop for lunch at the border between Arizona and New Mexico. Jess buys approximately seven million maps, and Nick buys them hotdogs for lunch. They drink burnt coffee and Jess buys a bunch of bottles of water. 

In Santa Fe they check into a cheap hotel, and walk around for an hour. Normally, Nick would find this kind of activity offensive and boring, but his hips were starting to hurt after almost seven hours sitting in the car, and Jess knocks her shoulder into his every so often. After the fourth time, he wraps his arm around her and she leans into him. It’s not even gross despite the heat. 

After dinner they go back to their room. It’s a standard hotel room with two queen size beds, and Jess loiters awkwardly at the door, before Nick grabs her around the waist and tosses her on the one closest to the door. 

She laughs when he fake body slams her, and gasps when he slides his hands into her leggings. Her skin is sticky and warm from the early evening heat, and she tastes delicious when he puts his mouth all over it. 

She tries to wake him again early the next morning, quietly slipping out of bed to get dressed. Instead, Nick catches her wrist and pulls her down underneath him swallowing her protests with open mouth kisses. They don’t leave the hotel room until well past noon, and then they see the city, getting lunch at the Santa Fe Plaza. 

The sun is high and hot again. Nick gets a sunburn on the back of his neck and the tips of his ears. 

They fuck again that night, Nick on his back with Jess pushing her hands down on his shoulders as she rides him. His hands can’t settle, skimming over her ass, hips, stomach, breasts, shoulders. She gasps for breath and leans down to suck at his neck and collarbone. 

After, the two of them spent, they lie on top of the covers and let the AC cool their skin. Nick wakes up again when it’s dark and tugs them both under the blankets. 

 

-

 

Jess spreads the maps out on the table in the morning. There are a million different places they could go next--including home. Nick likes the heat though so he points south. 

The drive to Dallas is long. Longer than any stretch they’ve done so far. Nick gets bored, and then he gets annoyed when Jess wants to play Eye Spy for _four hours_. He tries ignoring her, he tries faking sleep.

“It’s your bag!” he shouts when he can’t take it anymore. He figured out it was he bag about half a second after she said it was something brown because Jess would _think_ he would think it was the passing scenery and go for something inside the car instead. 

“Sheesh,” she sighs. “You don’t have to yell.” 

Which is ridiculous. Eighty five percent of Nick’s life consists of yelling--either his own or other people at him (the other fifteen percent is split evenly between jerking off, eating, and watching television). 

They make it to Dallas in one piece, and as soon as they check into a hotel room Nick shoves Jess bodily across the room. It feels _really good_ and he doesn’t have to feel bad because she lands on the bed with a couple soft bounces. 

He doesn’t even take their clothes off, just undoes his fly, and flips her over on her stomach, pushes her dumb leggings down around her knees and fucks into her with a harsh jerk. They moan in tandem, and Nick puts one hand flat in the middle of her shoulder blades, flicks at her clit roughly with the other. 

She comes with a quiet gasp, in stark contrast to the incessant chatter from the rest of the day. He grunts when he comes and lands on top of her. 

Jess allows this for a couple of minutes before she elbows him in the solar plexus. Hard. He lets out a loud noise and rolls to the side. They lie quietly for a long moment, both their pants around their knees. 

Jess sits up eventually, and strips off her clothes. It’s perfunctory, and somehow still the hottest thing he’s ever see. She grins and leers obviously when she catches him looking before climbing into his lap. Bites his jaw. 

 

-

 

They spend three days in Dallas, mostly because every time Nick starts to think about getting back in a car with Jess for a prolonged period of time he’s absolutely sure he will murder her. 

Instead they go to the zoo, and Nick presents her with detailed arguments on how he would fight--and defeat--the various animals. 

“Giraffe,” Jess says without even pausing to think about it once he finishes his outlining his plan. 

“Seriously?” Nick asked. “You’re just messing with me now, aren’t you?” 

She shrugs. 

He waives her off. “You’re messing with me. Are you? You are. Are you?” 

Jess staying frustratingly quiet. 

“Fine,” he huffs. “So what’s an animal you think I could fight, huh?” 

She considers. “A gopher? Maybe.” 

Nick is so offended he doesn’t speak to her for several exhibits. After they see the stingrays she buys him ice cream, so he finds it in his heart to forgive her. 

He makes sure they stay in bed until at least ten every day. Each time she tries to get up early he pulls her down into the blankets and eats her out until they’re both sex stupid and sleepy. It’s fantastic in every way imaginable, especially because neither one of them has to be worried about Schmidt or Winston hearing them. 

Nick’s quiet in bed usually, mostly letting out what are probably frankly disgusting grunts and sweating all over the place, but he had heard Jess before--with her other boyfriends. She lets out loud breathy gasps and moans. Sometimes an “oh god,” or a “fuck yes.” Nick wanted to hear that from her the first time they slept together, but they had both been quiet, burying their sex noises into each other’s skin. 

Now they’re free to be as loud as they want and Nick takes full advantage, learning Jess’s body and what she likes and how to make her scream. 

He makes her go to Cowboys Stadium, and she drags him to the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in retaliation. They eat disgustingly expensive cafeteria food, and Nick finds it hard (heh) to be mad when she hustled him into the women’s bathroom and gives him the dirtiest, sloppiest blowjob he’s ever had. 

Her lipstick is smeared after, and her knees are pink from the hard tile floor, and after he came, Nick hauls her to her feet and kisses the jizz taste out of her mouth. 

 

\- 

 

The fourth day Jess won’t let him drag her back to bed and Nick figures he can stand some time in the car again and they blearily make their way back on the interstate. Nick’s too sleepy to drive, and promptly passes out in the passenger seat. 

He wakes again sometime shortly before eleven. 

“Where are we?” he asks. His voice is scratchy with sleep, and Jess had left the windows mostly up to keep from disturbing him. It’s hot in the car where the sun has been beating down for several hours. Nick’s back is completely sweaty and gross. He rolls down the window. 

“Louisiana,” she says, and hums along with the radio. 

They pull into a truck stop a little while later and Nick buys them both coffee and breakfast sandwiches. 

He realises they’ve been on the road for over a week and haven’t called to let anyone know where they are. 

“Do you think we should tell someone where we’ve gone?” he asks once they’re back at the car. Jess handed him the keys and is now slumped down in the passenger seat. 

She gives him a look.

“I told Cece what happened back at the Grand Canyon,” she said, like Nick’s the dumbest piece of shit to have ever walked the earth. “I’ve been texting her the entire time. Are you telling me you’ve told literally no one where you’ve been?” 

Nick doesn’t say anything. He imagines the entirely sheepish look on his face speaks enough on his behalf. 

“Nick!” she says, smacking him the chest. “Are you kidding me right now? Call Schmidt or Winston _right now_ ” 

He pulls his shitty phone out of his pocket while they loiter around outside their vehicle. Schmidt answers on the first ring, he sounds hysterical. 

“Nick? Nick is that you? Where are you? Are you okay? Were you kidnapped by ruffians? Youths? WHO DID THIS TO YOU? TELL ME, NICKY. I’ll kill them,” he says. “I’ll kill them dead.” 

Nick holds the phone away from his ear while Schmidt rants. “Schmitty,” he says. “It’s okay. I’m fine, everything’s fine.” 

Schmidt starts crying very loudly. 

“Is that Nick?” He hears Winston’s voice in the background. Then louder when he takes the phone away from Schmidt. “Nick is that you?” 

“Yeah, it’s me, buddy,” he says. 

“Oh thank god,” Winston says, sounding equally upset. “Where have you been? Is everything okay? Where are you?” 

“I’m in Louisiana,” Nick says, awkwardly. “Jess and I are kind of on a road trip.”

All sound stops from the other end of the line. 

“Are you telling me,” Winston says, his voice deadly calm. “That you have been fine this _entire time_ while Schmitty and I have been out of our minds with worry?” 

“Um,” Nick says. 

“Well,” Winston says. “We better call Detective Landry and tell him to call off the search. And you might want to call your mom.” 

“My mom?” Nick asks weakly. 

“You’ve been gone for over a week, Nick,” Winston says. “OVER A WEEK. You don’t write, you don’t call. What were supposed to think? Were we supposed to assume you were off discovering yourself or what the fuck ever? What if you had been lying in a ditch, Nicholas? I don’t want your death on my hands. Do you want his death on your hands, Schmidt?” 

“I do not,” Schmidt’s tinny voice comes through over the line. 

“Schmidt doesn’t want your death on his hands either. Though, frankly, I’m not sure why we even care, when you _clearly_ don’t care enough to pick up the goddamn phone.” 

Nick turns to Jess hopelessly. 

She looks at him seriously for three seconds before she cracks. Nick looks at the phone in his hand through which he can now hear Winston and Schmidt also laughing their heads off. 

“Very funny,” he mutters. 

Jess grabs the phone. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, good one. Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell him. Okay. Okay, bye.” She hands his phone back to him. 

She’s still looking at him like he’s the dumbest piece of shit to walk the earth, but she also doesn’t look like she wants to stop sucking his dick, and that’s the closest Nick’s ever been to having someone accept the hot mess he is, so he’ll take it. 

“Winston and Schmidt say that you’re a jackass,” she tells him cheerily. 

Nick gives her the finger.

 

\- 

 

They spend a week in New Orleans getting drunk in the French Quarter. They eat a lot of food, and a lot of the time passes in a horny, drunken haze. Jess makes them do a lot of touristy stuff like Jackson Square and the Saint Louis Cemetery, but Nick doesn’t really care, he finds. It’s fun, and Jess looks beautiful all tanned and happy. 

They head north again after that, driving six hours through Alabama and Georgia. They go to the Aquarium in Atlanta, because it’s too hot to do anything else, and Centennial Olympic Park the day after. Jess takes his picture on the Olympic rings and he pretends he won a gold medal at some weird Olympic sport like the decathlon or the javelin or shot put.

Jess laughs while he does exaggerated throwing motions like he’s seen on TV. 

“Oh yeah,” she tells him after he launches his imaginary shot put several hundred meters (that’s how far they go, right?). “Sexy, Miller. So damn sexy.” 

The tips of his ears burn, but he crowds up into her personal space and kisses her deeply. Doesn’t bother not looking smug when he pulls back. “Shut it, Day,” he says. “And throw your damn shot put.” 

Jess steps forward and launches hers. 

Nick holds up victory arms and magnanimously gives her the gold medal. “It was a close one,” he says. 

Jess pulls him in by the belt loops on his pants and kisses him again, dirty, a promise of something more to come later. Nick grins. 

 

-

 

From Atlanta it’s Nashville, then St. Louis. 

In Nashville they go to the Pantheon and the Country Music Hall of fame. Nick puts on a cowboy hat and warbles out “Ring of Fire,” while Jess claps gleefully. 

They see the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and Jess drags him to what feels like six thousand different museums, but what is probably in reality only three or four. Nick stays by the pool one day and sleeps while Jess goes out into the city. He’s exhausted and as much as he loves Jess (he _loves_ Jess, he’s not thinking about it), he needs some time away from her. 

She needs time away from him too. 

When she gets back at the end of the day, she tells him about some weird sculpture park she visited, and Nick tells her which episodes of Fresh Prince were on Peachtree. It’s a good system. 

 

-

 

They’ve gotten by so far without really having a set _plan_. Jess pulls out her maps at the beginning of each day (and Nick knows she’s been buying more the further they get from California), and between the two of them they just sort of point the car in the general direction they want to go. 

After St. Louis, Nick knows there’s no avoiding the conversation. He tries to by keeping Jess in bed an extra day, tickling her and kissing her, putting her on her hands and knees and fucking her breathless, but it’s no use. 

He should have known who he was dealing with. 

“So,” she says on their third morning in St. Louis. “Illinois is right across the river. Right there. Just a hop skip and a jump away from us. Yessiree.” 

Nick almost wants to let her keep talking, just to see where this’ll go, but he appreciates what she’s doing for him, and what’s she’s already done. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.” 

“So,” Jess says again, drawing out the word. “Any preference on where we should go next?” 

Nick knows--he _knows_ \--he could say Iowa, or Arkansas, or Kentucky, or Kansas. Hell, he could even say that he was ready to go home and Jess would accept that, just as she’s accepted every other hairbrained thing he’s done, and just as he’s accepted all the weird shit she does on a daily basis. He could say any of those options and she wouldn’t call him on it, content to wait him out until he’s ready. 

But Nick’s tired of saying no. 

“I guess Chicago is right there, huh?” he says. 

Jess nods. She hands him the keys. 

It’s not a long drive to Chicago. Just over four hours, and they do it straight without any stops. Like ripping off a bandaid, Nick thinks. 

“We should have called ahead,” Nick says when they’re parked outside his mother’s house. 

Jess looks at him. “You didn’t call ahead?” she exclaims. 

He shrugs helplessly, and she rests her forehead against her palm for several long moments. Nick can hear her breathing--not in the normal way you can hear someone breathing when it’s just two people in a car together, but she was breathing really loudly, like she wanted to call him on the not calling people thing, _again_ , but was restraining herself. 

“Well,” he said. “No time like the present.” 

He pulled the keys out of the ignition, and got out of the car. Jess followed, muttering under her breath about how his mom hated her. He loved her a lot in that moment. 

His mom hugs him, and does a lot of exclaiming about how happy she is to see him, and what is he doing here? She also glares a lot at Jess, which Jess pretends not to notice. 

It’s nice. 

They spend a few days in Chicago, in his mother’s house. It’s weird. Nick takes her to all his old haunts, to see his high school, and to eat at the diner they always used to go to. They also do a lot of the regular touristy stuff. He takes her to the Bean and to Sears--sorry, Willis--Tower, the Pier. They go see a Cubs game with his brothers. 

It’s fun. 

His mom puts Jess up in the spare bedroom, and Nick sleeps in his old room, and it’s weird but nice. 

On their last night in the city, Jess sneaks into his room well past the time when anyone would be awake, strips off her clothes and climbs into bed with him. Nick had been asleep, wearing just his boxers, but he wakes up when she opens the door.

He watches through hooded eyes as she creeps across his bedroom, tiptoeing like she was some kind of cartoon villain. But she’s warm and pliant in his lap, rubbing her wet crotch across his belly and hips, getting him hard with her hands and mouth.

When she sinks down onto his dick, Nick jerks up and bites her shoulder to keep quiet. Jess fucks him slow and easy until they’re both panting quietly. She comes with a gasp a long while later, and he takes hold of her hips firmly with his hands and thrusts up hard and fast until he comes. 

They lie in a pile of sweaty, sticky jizz breathing harshly for several minutes. 

“You ever do it in this bed before?” she asks. 

He thinks about lying. Doesn’t. “Yeah,” he says. 

She smiles against his chest, easy. “You ever do it better?” 

He strokes down her back. “Nah.” 

 

\- 

 

“Should we go home?” Jess asks before they leave Chicago. 

Nick shrugs. He’s not sure. They’ve had a good run, but they’ve been gone about a month, and he is going to need to work again sometime. Shit, if he even has a job when he gets home, he never did call the bar. Fuck. 

“Maybe?” he says instead of what he imagines the responsible thing to be. 

“It’s only July,” Jess says, and Nick’s heart feels warm. She doesn’t want it to end either. 

“Pittsburgh?” he asks. 

She nods decisively. 

They only spend a day in the city. Jess goes to the Andy Warhol museum, and Nick loses four hundred buck at the casino. 

From there they drive to NYC and spend a week doing all the kinds of touristy shit Nick normally hates. To Jess’s delight, he _loves_ Times Square, and she drags him to a Broadway show. They see the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero, the Empire State Building, and Strawberry Fields, and Nick pretends he’s the kind of person who can afford to just take off from his life for two months. Pretends that he’s the kind of person who is allowed nice things. The kind of person who gets what he wants. 

Jess slides underneath the same covers as he does every single night, and he wonders how this will translate back in Los Angeles. If he’ll still get this, still get _Jess_. If he can still be the kind of person who says yes to big and scary things like a road trip across the country, and a relationship, or if he’ll go back to the same Nick Miller he always was, afraid to do anything. 

 

-

 

The car breaks down twenty miles outside of Boston. 

Nick kicks at the wheel well impotently. Jess, surprisingly, shrugs it off. 

“It was never going to make the trip home,” she says. 

Nick doesn’t know why her quiet acceptance of the car’s breakdown freaks him out, but it does. 

“So you’re just going to _leave_ it here?” he shouts, when the mechanic tells her it’ll cost two grand to fix. 

She nods. “I can get a new one for cheaper back home,” she says, like he’s crazy. Like she isn’t just abandoning something special. Like she can just get a new one like it’s no big deal. 

“So car was good for this trip, and that’s it?” he asks. “You’re just going to get a new one when you get home and forget this car ever existed, aren’t you, Jessica?” 

The fight devolves quickly from there. Nick isn’t even sure why he’s yelling, and he’s convinced Jess doesn’t know why she’s mad other than the fact that Nick is a lunatic. 

They take a silent cab ride to a hotel in the city, and when they’re checked into their room, Nick turns and faces her. 

“It had a good run,” he says awkwardly. “The car.” 

Jess stares at him. “Yes,” she said. “It’s just a car.” A beat. “Oh my god!” she shouts, and then again. “Oh my god.” 

Nick’s a little bit afraid to approach her. “Are you okay?” he asks hesitantly. 

“Am I okay? Am _I_ okay? It’s just a car you fucking maniac,” she says. “It’s not a metaphor.”

“I know.” 

“It’s not _you_ , Nick. It’s not us.” 

“I know,” he says again, more quietly. He does know that. He does. 

“Do you?” she asks. “Because I’m don’t want to pay two grand to get that car running again just to get it home, but I will.” 

He stares at her. “Do you get how crazy that sounds?” he asks. 

She puts her hands on her hips. “Do you?” 

He does. He thinks he does. “Maybe,” he says after a moment of the two of them heavy breathing next to each other. “Maybe we should just take a plane back home,” he says. 

“You think?” she asks. 

He nods once, decisive. 

 

\- 

 

They spend another week in Boston. They see the ducks at the Common, and go to Harvard, and they see a bunch of really old buildings that Jess gets super excited over and talks about for three hours or so. They also go to Fenway, and the museum of science, and it’s just a lot of fun. Even without the car. 

They don’t need the car. 

They buy plane tickets, and fly back the four thousand odd miles they drove over the last several weeks. It seems strange to cover in only a few hours what previously took them days. 

Winston and Schmidt pick them up at LAX and Schmidt french kisses Nick sloppily. He’s too tired to pull away in time, and when he goes to spit on the ground Jess gives him stink eye. 

“Gross,” he says instead, wiping his mouth. 

They pile in the back of Schmidt’s fancy car and drive back to their loft. It seems strange, like nothing has changed. Nick knows that’s a lie. 

Everything has changed. 

Jess spreads her maps out across the kitchen table. She’s marked their journey in thick black sharpie, and written notes in the various places they’ve been with blue or black pen. Whatever the hotel had free. She tells their story to Winston and Schmidt, talks loudly with her hands, and looks to Nick every so often to fill in the details. 

That night Jess goes into her own room, and Nick stares at his ceiling telling himself it doesn’t mean anything. That he doesn’t feel weird sleeping alone after weeks of having her body pressed up against his own. 

He thinks, fuck it. Gets out of bed and crosses the apartment, climbs into Jess’s bed, and curls his arm around her waist. 

“I couldn’t sleep without your snoring,” he says into the skin at her shoulder. 

“I don’t snore,” Jess says sleepily. 

Nick doesn’t correct her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure there are already a million Nick and Jess roadtrip their way across America fics after the finale, and there will likely be a million more. This is my take. I apologize for any inaccuracies with regards to American geography or landmarks. I looked at a map. That was pretty much the extent of my research.


End file.
